Food Waste Friday - 12 November 2010

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

I'm not long in from work, bought myself a kebab for dinner on the way home and have no interest in going anywhere near the fridge or tidying up or clearing out in any way.  That's the way it goes sometimes.  I know I do have a very small amount of cream cheese left - I brought the rest of the tub to work today and bought a breadroll and had it with that for lunch but didn't quite finish it.  It was fine though so I think it might do on a slice of bread for breakfast tomorrow morning.  Apart from that I don't think there was anything to get rid off.  I'm not doing much in the way of shopping this weekend either as I have a few things to get use up and it's just easiser to do that sometimes if you have no choice about what to eat and just have to use what's there.

I do have tomatoes that I bought last week - I still haven't gotten around to making the kasundi relish that some Australian friend asked me to try making.  I have great plans to do things in the evenings but by the time it hits four or five o'clock I'm getting so tired in work that I can't even contemplate doing anything apart from going home to bed.  It hasn't helped that it's been raining for a couple of days now.  At least we're not getting the ferocious storms that are hitting Ireland and Scotland - leaving people without electricity even.  Actually I need to get working on figuring out how to light a camping stove type thing.  I bought a couple of small ones on ebay last year, even bought a bottle of spirits and since then haven't been brave enough to try it out (with a  large dose of I'm not really sure what to do).  Wish I knew someone who was into camping who could just come over and teach me this kind of thing.  I have plenty of candles stashed in two or three easy to get to places (with boxes of matches also stored with them and in a few other places too) so light wouldn't be a problem if the electricity ever did go out here.  But having something to heat up water or cook with is something I don't have until I figure out how to light those camping yokes.  Come to think of it, I should buy some replacement gel burning things for my fondue set too, there's nothing says that cheese is the only thing you can cook in that pot.  I think living on a main road with lots of restaurants and pizza places and the like nearby means I assume I'd be fine even if something did happen.  But it'd be nice to feel like I was prepared myself too. 

Hmmm, that was a bit of a tangent there, where was I?  Oh yes, kasundi.  Well, maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.

So, not much food waste this week and a few tasks tomorrow to keep things under control.

Edited about half an hour later:  as soon as I'd written the above I was overcome with an unbearable need to get up and check that I really did know what was in my fridge (I also remembered I still had some milk and decided to drink a cup of that to help finish it off).  I couldn't have been more wrong about very little food waste this week.  What is the matter with me?  I made lovely vegetable soup nearly two weeks ago, have looked in the fridge numerous times since then for various things (including FWF last week!) and somehow managed to do it without even seeing that jug of soup.  Ridiculous behaviour!

I also found these:

Some apple/nectarine jam which is starting to mould, some quince juice which looks fine but based on the state of the apple juice behind it, I'm not taking any chances on it.  The quince juice was supposed to go toward making some jelly and the apple juice was the leftover bit from my steam juicing efforts and was supposed to be a nice treat for my breakfast the next morning.  It got shoved to the back and has been there for over two weeks as well (since I gave the juicer back two weeks ago, it has to have been at least that long).  I think I just didn't look at an entire shelf of the fridge at all or something.  I'd like to say I just need a holiday but I'm not sure that would be enough.  I definitely need something!  Honestly, how many other people would have this growing in their fridge and not notice?

Shudder, shudder, shudder.  I will be scrubbing out the fridge tomorrow, that's for sure.  Eeeewwww.  And what a waste of some really delicious food!

It's all connected

The muscles in your back I mean.  Turns out that I don't only have a problem with my shoulder/neck but also my lower back. When the orthopaedic doctor said earlier in the week that the acupuncture I had been getting was mostly to deal with my lower back pain I was a bit surprised. I thought he had only put that down so that the health insurance would pay for it (I had heard that they don’t always pay, it depends on where the pain is) because when he asked me about lower back pain I just said, no more than usual. At my weight and sitting down all day it’s sort of inevitable that my back gets very tired and sore anyway. So today I went for my first physio session. He asked me to go back to the same place that I went for massage and heat therapy during the summer and it turns out the masseur I had before when I went to this place is probably just the grumpy one because the guy I had to day was lovely. He introduced himself before we got started and asked me questions about where and how it hurt as well as explaining what he was doing the whole time. What a difference.

Anyway, before starting the physio he said he wanted to check exactly how the muscles felt so I lay down and he started poking and prodding. He asked as well about my lower back so I tried to explain about that and then he started poking there..”does that hurt?”…”a bit, not much really”…”does that hurt?”…”nah, fine”…”does that hurt?”…”flippin heck! ow ow ow ow OUCH!. Yes.” So it loooks like I really do have a problem in my lower back as well and the pain I thought was sort of getting better is mostly getting better because I’ve just stopped moving my arm in any of the ways that I know are just going to hurt. He said I’m actually still too bad to start doing physio so today I just had a massage again. He won’t start exercises until the pain has reduced a bit because he said that just causes more damage than good – working through the pain in this case is apparently not worth it. Well, okay then. Have five more sessions over the next two weeks and we’ll see how it goes from there.

I also went to the shoemaker to sort out my new arch supports. He took the box of my foot impressions that I got from the orthopaedic doctor the other day (that was strange, it's like a shoebox filled with an oasis-like substance that I had to stand into) and then I also had to stand on this glass plate set into the floor. It was basically like a fancy foot photocopier. He said that the arch supports I have are actually completely wrong for me, I need softer ones with more support under the ball of my foot. It’ll be interesting to get them next week and see what, if any, difference they make. And at 5.61 I think the price is right, too!  The physio/massage will cost less than 20.  I may moan about how much I need to pay for health insurance every month but when something is wrong (except, obviously, for dental work) you get what you need without having to worry about where to find the money to pay for it all.  And when you've got a pain in your back, you need all the silver linings you can get :-)

Taste the Waste

Just heard about a documentary that was shown on telly here a couple of weeks ago (I don't actually have a television so have just read about it online now).  Trailer here.  Apparently there will a full length film in cinemas next year.  Looks interesting and the statistics given in that trailer - no idea where they're from or how reliable they are but they are shocking!

What would you like to know?

I have dozens and dozens of things floating around in my head that I would like to write about.  I've started some posts and need to find some time/get more organised so that I can actually make writing a proper part of my routine.  I've definitely kept up this blog far more consistently (despite sometimes long gaps) and for far longer than any other diary I have ever attempted.  Part of the reason for that is, I think, that although I do for the most part write this purely for myself, the knowledge that people might read it, helps to keep me away from the worst of my teenage drama queen self.  Trust me, I have on occassion re-read some of the stuff I wrote in the few diaries I tried to keep - cringeworthy stuff, all of it.  I have to admit that typing also helps as I can type far faster than I ever could write and so I can have some hope of getting my thoughts down before my mind has flitted away to something else or my thoughts have gone off on a tangent, leading me so far away from my original point that I forget it.  That still happens of course, but not as much. 

Some day when I have a bit of time I will have a read back through the archives as I have a feeling I am guilty of fairly often saying things like 'more on that later' or 'I'll post an update in a few months' and then never actually doing that.  I know I am long overdue for an update on my no-more-shampoo experiences for example.  My new plan is that if I ever do write in a post that I will post an update or something similar, I will immediately start a new post and thus have a draft saved and sitting there as a reminder for me.  We'll see how that works out.

In the meantime, I thought I might take this opportunity to see if anyone who does read along with me wants to know anything in particular, would like me to expand on something I have already written about, has a topic they'd like me to post about - so, any questions? 

Food Waste Friday 5 November 2010

I nearly had a no waste week but there was some mozarella in the fridge that I ended up not using when I bought it and all of a sudden, it's nearly a week past it's best before date.  I'm generally fairly flexible about dates but mozarella and feta cheeses are two things I just can't convince myself don't taste or smell a bit funny once they're past their dates.  So out it went.

Otherwise, I failed miserably on my second batch of applesauce cookies and now have a big tupperware container of crumbs at my disposal.  Very tasty crumbs mind you.  I had a friend over for dinner yesterday and she suggested I use them to make something else, which is a great idea.  She mentioned a brown betty (and I have to laugh because I remembered that today as a betty brown and googled it, getting a load of hits for a Texas politician which left my wondering if I had given my friend one too many glasses of wine with her dinner!).  So I might give that a try.  Or perhaps make a trifle type thing.  Or a cheesecakey type something.  So hopefully part of next week's waste won't be to report a load of crumbs going in the bin!

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Budget

I've updated my totals on the side.  My goals, set at the end of August, were fairly arbitrary really and it doesn't look like I will achieve them.  Or at least not in the way I was thinking.

1. Reduce cc debt to 3,500: still 350 left to go on this one, if I gave myself a budget of almost nothing for December I could manage to do this.  But I won't.
2. Reduce overdraft to 2,250: just over 100 left to go on this one - achievable, this is only slightly off-track
3. Save 400 in annual expenses account: won't be achieved as I hadn't accounted for one expense that needed to be paid. 
4. Save 20 each month for my birthday present: haven't managed this at all
5. Have 40 no-spend days between 30 August and 5 December: completely forgot to start counting these - probably managing three a week on average

What will make a difference is that we actually are going to get a bonus in work this year and this will be paid out at the end of November.  I've gone through various options of how to allocate this money but what I have decided to do is throw almost all of it at my overdraft, keeping just a small amount as a 'treat'/birthday/christmas money.  Many might say that I shouldn't do that because I haven't 'earned' it but I know myself and I know that letting myself do this will make January and February much easier.  I have a tendency to overspend in January, it's one of the months I've always been most likely to reach for the credit card and it's better to try and get myself into a position where I don't feel under pressure.  Allowing myself to have a bit extra during December, regardless of whether I actually spend it or not, is the right thing to do as long as I don't try to fool myself into thinking I can spend recklessly.  I'm not talking about keeping hundreds aside!

I hope to get some tax back soon as well and think I can also send in my application to get some of the money for my tooth implant back soon.  Work have a scheme where you can apply for one-off financial help in unusual circumstances.  There's a certain budget set aside for this every year and a committee decides on each case individually as far as I understand.  However, one of the things that they do help out with, is expensive dental work (crowns, implants, bridges and so on).  It's limited to about one thousand euro and they may deduct an amount equal to how much you would have paid for a supplementary insurance which would otherwise have covered the cost, or some of the cost of the work.  So hopefully I might be able to get something under that scheme as well.  So by January or February I might be very close to clearing my overdraft.  It would be nice to have one debt less!

Steaming and bottling/canning apples

Last week I borrowed a steam juicer from the bio-garten and also brought home three large bags of apples (mostly windfalls). I am very in love with this piece of equipment and will be keeping my eye out to see if I can pick one up second-hand once I have a bit a money.

Basically you chop the apples up small (wash them first and chop the 'hairy' bit of the end and remove the stalk but leave skin on and use core too), then put them into the top colander-like part of the steamer, like so:

The very bottom part gets filled with water:

Then as the steam from that moves up into the main part of the pan (through a funnel arrangement) the apples slowly start cooking and releasing their juices down into the middle part:

And you can then collect the juice out of the spout. The juice is pasteurised when it comes out and will keep for a long time so long as you put it into sterilised jars or bottles.

We had done this a few times at the bio-garten but each time they just dumped the pulp remains onto the compost. I asked if it wasn't possible to use it for something else and the main consensus was that it was mostly lack of space and jars that stopped us from doing anything else with it in the garden but at home, you would just put the pulp through a mouli, making applesauce and then put that in sterilised jars too. Or mix a bit of honey into the pulp, spread it out thinly and dry it as a fruit leather.

So, when I had the steamer at home I decided to give it all a go. The first lot, I juiced and got three litres of juice plus one smaller jar. I put the pulp through the mouli, adding in the juice from the smaller not quite full jar just to use it up. All went into sterilised jars and seemed fine.

Three litres of juice and 1 x 1 litre jar, 3 x 3/4 litre jars lus 1 x 450 ml jars of apple sauce.  Annoyingly, I know now first-hand why it is important not to bump against or touch your jars as they are sealing.  I did this not long after bottling this stuff up and the seal popped down almost immediately on the one I hit against.  I reckoned it wouldn't seal properly so was very surprised the next morning to see that all were sealed tightly (took rings off and held jars up by lid, no problems).  But a week later and I have just checked those jars again as I still need to put labels on them (yes, I tend to collect jars of stuff to the point where I'm going to lose track of what's where before I get around to putting labels on).  And surprise, surprise the big jar of applesauce is not only a bit loose, it's not even close to pretending to be sealed and there's a lovely layer of furry stuff on top of the sauce.  I can't actually remember if this was the one I did knock against but it seems likely.  Sigh.

But moving on.  When I did the second lot I was a bit pressed for time so I got just over two litres of juice out of a pot and a half full of apples and then put the rest through the mouli (i.e. far more liquid than the first lot). I put a small amount of this into sterilised jars immediately but the rest went into a big bowl as I didn't have time to deal with it.

The next day I decided to look up t'internet to see what people say about bottling applesauce the day after you've made it. Didn't see anything suggesting it wouldn't be possible but almost everything I read insisted that it should be processed in a water bath (unlike what I had been told before). So, to be on the safe side, I heated up what I had made the day before, put it into jars and processed it in a waterbath. It took a while for it to come up to boiling and then I let it boil for just over ten minutes. Took them out and one had definitely opened as the water was looking decidedly applely.

I had used one glass jar (with rubber ring and glass lid) and the rubber seal seemed to have slipped so I was putting it down to that. The rest were leifheit jars with the two part lids. I tightened up the rings and on one of them, apple squished up around the edges. Ok, I thought, so one of them was too loose and now two jars won't seal. Fine.

This morning I checked to see and the glass lidded jar didn't seal as expected. The leifheit jar which I thought wouldn't seal did but one of the others didn't.

ALL of the leifheit jars, though, had apple around the inside of the rings when I took them off. Like this one:

But despite this, the jars are sealed even though I assume there is apple stuck under the seal as well and I'm not sure if that's a big problem or not.  If any of you more experienced canners out there have any advice, I would very much appreciate it.

Although I don't have the steamer any more I do still have some apples left and I was going to just make ordinary stewed apple and bottle it. I've done that once before and didn't process it in a water bath and it was fine months later, which is what the people in the garden had also said. So I'm curious if people here have done that too or do you always process it in a water bath?

I'd really like to put up enough stewed apple/apple sauce/dried apples this year to do me through the few months in late spring and summer when fresh apples just aren't so nice.  But this is just making it seem like more work than I'm able for at the moment.

Still, on the positive side, I will be making applesauce cookies today.  I can freeze some of it as well as I have very selflessly made space in the freezer by eating the last of the vienetta for breakfast. :-)  I've loaned my dehydrator to someone for a couple of weeks so can't make any leathers at the moment.

Apart from that it's a new month so I'll post another budget update in a day or two once all the usual transfers and payments have gone through.  I did take advantage of the shops being open yesterday (normally shops only open on Sunday two or three times a year here) to go into a shop for larger ladies (the name of which would translate as 'All Round Chic' - can't decide if I hate it or think it's amusing) that is usually closed when I am passing.  I badly, badly need new trousers for work and managed to get a pair of navy trousers, which means I can wear those navy shoes I bought years ago, just before my then only pair of navy trousers gave up the ghost.  So I don't need to worry about buying new black shoes for work for the moment either.  At 69.95, they were a very reasonable price as well.  I haven't bought many clothes for a while (apart from my summer lifesaver 2 for 10 euro t-shirts) but based on what I see in shop windows and what I hear people talking about I was thinking that if I came away with change from a hundred I would be very lucky.  And since I was in town I popped into one of the big department stores and bought a nut cracker.  For the past two years I have bought fresh nuts when they appear in the market and then never gotten around to actually using them because I don't have a nut cracker (or floors hard enough to take the strain of a nut being hammered into submission on them).  I actually still have the hazelnuts and walnuts I bought last year.  So those I bought on Saturday will be shelled very shortly and I might even try one or two from last year to see if they've gone completely rancid or might still be something edible.  If I can get more hazelnuts next week there will be a couple of jars of honeyed hazels in my future.